The Whistleblower (Larysa Kondracki, 2010) USA/Germany

Reviewed By Nick Hincapie at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011.

Throughout the entire film festival I had seen several starred unknown actors. Not that that’s a bad thing but I was hoping to maybe find one film there that starred a well known actor. I was happy to learn that there was a film at the festival starring Rachel Weisz who I’ve always thought was a good actress. The film was called The Whistleblower which is a crime thriller about a hard working cop.

The film tells the story of Kathryn Bolkovac a Nebraska Cop who becomes a peace maker in Bosnia in order to earn enough money to keep contact with her daughter whom she lost custody of by her husband. Kathy takes her work very seriously and is highly dedicated to her job. In the film Kathy meets a girl who tells her about an incident at a Florida Bar. One day Kathy goes to the bar and finds a bunch of girls who are caged up and trapped as slaves by one of her former colleagues. Kathy then uses all of her power to save these girls from the man who kidnapped them.

This film is very dark and violent. People should be warned that there are scenes in the film were we see the girls being tortured and raped by the men who kidnapped them. That being said this is a very moving film that people should see so they can know the tragedy that these girls went through. Rachel Weisz gives a superb performance as Kathy and quite possibly gives the best performance of her entire career.

The director of the film Larysa Kondracki does an excellent job of showing the audience exactly what happened to these girls and makes us care about Kathy through the entire film. Kondracki is able re create all of these events very well and makes it all look very convincing.

I was surprised to learn after the screening that the film is based of a true story. After watching the film I cared about Kathy and felt for her because of all of the different struggles she encountered in order to try and save those girls.I hope this plays in more theaters in the future so everyone can whats so great about this film. I have  feeling that this will reach a wider audience and people will see it and the director Larysa Konraki will have a long career.